


Machinations

by Sepiidae



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Space, F/F, Gen, Space Station, cyborg Kanaya, drama! intrigue! someone's gonna kiss a robot!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-28
Updated: 2015-12-28
Packaged: 2018-05-09 22:34:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5558108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sepiidae/pseuds/Sepiidae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jade Harley, a robotics specialist, does her job. Unfortunately for everyone involved, this makes her an unexpected wrench in the gears of a complicated scheme she was previously unaware of.</p><p>Kanaya Maryam accompanies her moirail on a routine scouting mission and wakes up captured by the enemy. And also as a robot.</p><p>Nobody is going to have a good day.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Machinations

There was something weird about this brain.

 

Jade Harley frowned and lifted it gently in her gloved hands. As the station’s only robotics specialist, she’d handled more than the usual share of human brains. By now she could usually guess when a specimen was non-viable even before testing, even when the signs were subtle. But she didn’t get the feeling that this brain would be non-responsive. There was just something weird about it. Maybe the color wasn’t quite the right shade of beige-pink? Maybe it was just a little heavier than she’d expected?

 

Well, whatever. This had been an anonymous specimen without any attached medical records. Probably there was some small genetic abnormality here that the records would have made obvious. Without knowing who this had belonged to, the only thing for it was to get started on hooking it up to the chassis.

 

Setting it up in the protective braincase took about an hour and a half. This was the most important step, the delicate wiring of wetware to hardware. Making sure that the brain was seated correctly within the gel and padding that would keep it safe. Testing the connections to be certain that the brain wouldn’t be fried or overloaded the first time the chassis was powered.

 

In other words, making sure that she wouldn’t kill her patient.

 

Not that anyone else thought of it that way, but TeraTech wasn’t exactly a company with strict moral standards. Regardless of official rulings on the matter, there was no question in her mind. Even though her patients were medically dead (and, yes, disembodied brains) when they entered her lab, she was responsible for their safety.

 

The actual wiring was all safely in place and functioning correctly. Now all she had to do was decide which chassis to put it in. Jade usually had a couple standard bodies on hand, just in case of emergencies- it was concerning, really, how often those came up. She didn’t like to go with those normally, though. There was one of her improved models handy, too.

 

Or she could use the experimental chassis. Okay, so she really, _really_ wanted to use the experimental chassis. It was built to have even better sensory responses than her standard improvements, but without any of the usual sacrifice in durability. And okay, she was most excited about the improved facial responses. Maybe TeraTech wouldn’t be able to ignore that people were still _people_ even in metal bodies, that way. She’d run all the tests on it. It just needed someone to test it properly.

 

It’d be a shame to waste a chance like that. And somehow, putting a weird brain in an unusual new body just felt right. Jade wheeled the experimental body into place and went through the comfortably familiar routine of installing a new user. Power, boot-up, keep the motor responses damped at first so nobody got hurt if the patient woke up startled…

 

All the response signs looked good. Any second now her patient would wake up.

 

“ _STOP_ -” The figure on the table shifted slightly, a full-body flinch damped down to the slightest twitch. The expression of horror on their face gradually faded to wariness.

 

So the facial expressions were working as well as she’d hoped. It would just be nice if they weren’t _those_ expressions. Whoever this was, things had obviously been going badly for them the last time they were conscious.

 

Jade cleared her throat. “Hi there! I’m Dr. Jade Harley. You’re in the Robotics lab, and you’re just fine now. Well, you’re a cyborg, but most people who end up here have signed the waivers for that. Your physical responses are all minimized right now, I’ll be gradually adjusting those while you wake up. Um. Do you have any questions?”

 

Her patient’s eyes darted around the room before settling on Jade. The new cyborg was quiet for a long moment, their expression blank now. “Where are we?”

 

“The Robotics lab, TeraTech research space station #31.”

 

There was another long moment of silence from the figure on the table. “May I ask what language we are speaking?”

 

She winced sympathetically. “Ah, it’s English. Company policy, I’m supposed to wire that up as your primary language. I’m sorry if it’s not your first choice, you should still have access to any other languages you knew but they’ll be a little… muddy, at first? The whole process is still a bit rough on language comprehension.”

 

“I see,” they said carefully. Now that they’d asked about it, Jade noticed the way they enunciated each word carefully, like it was an unfamiliar specimen not wholly connected to the ones before or after it. It was far from the strangest result she’d encountered from unexpectedly wiring someone into an unfamiliar language. “Right! Now unless you have any other pressing questions…” Silence from her patient. “… and feel free to bring them up whenever you feel like it, if you do… I’d like to ask you a few questions, since there wasn’t really any info included with your brain.”

 

“I will do my best to provide adequate responses.”

 

“Okay, do you remember anything about yourself? Name, gender, first language, your dog’s maiden name…?”

 

“I…” Their gaze flicked surreptitiously around the room as Jade watched. After another prolonged moment’s pause they said, “I don’t think I can.”

 

She nodded sympathetically. “It happens sometimes. We can come up with a temporary name for you to use, and with any luck it’ll all come back to you soon. So, let me be blunt here, do you remember how you died? You kind of screamed a little on startup, there.”

 

 “I apologize for my outburst,” her patient said delicately. “I cannot recall the precise circumstances of my demise, but I can guess that it was the result of some violent and unexpected trauma.”

 

 Jade winced. “Yeah, that’s… really pretty common. Well, since you seem to be adapting well so far I’ll just…” She tweaked a few settings on the surgery console. “There, you should have a little more bodily control now. Take your time, wiggle your fingers, that sort of stuff. You should be up and walking in the next few hours. In the meantime, we can get you entered in the system properly whenever you’re ready, so you can access the station network,” she said. She stretched and toggled her visor. She’d had everything but emergency alerts toggled off like she always did during surgery, but now there was a high-priority message notice light blinking in the corner of her eye. “Hmm...” She frowned. She didn’t like to leave a new patient alone so soon after loading them into a chassis for the first time, but trying to read anything on her frames made her eyes water. “Sorry, one second, I’ve just gotta check something. I’ll be right outside, holler if you’re freaking out.”

 

 “Take your time,” her patient said politely.

 

 They were still cautiously wiggling their fingers as Jade stepped out into the dry lab. She logged into her computer terminal and opened her inbox. Red-tagged and bolded at the top was a command-level message. Weird, she wasn’t used to getting mail from anyone ranked above the medical bay director. Her brows drew together in a deep frown as she read the message contents.

 

> _URGENT NOTICE FOR ROBOTICS DEPT:_
> 
> _Brain #20413, included in today’s shipment, has been determined nonviable and unfit for use. Do not use. If you have received the brain with this serial number, incinerate it immediately._
> 
>  

That was the entire actual body of the message. Jade browsed automatically through several more messages, her eyes moving unseeingly over the words as her mind raced. Unless there was a very _big_ innocent mistake somewhere along the line, she’d finally run into TeraTech’s loose sense of ethics. Now she had to figure out how to get out of this mess, because at least one thing about the notice sitting at the top of her inbox was very, very wrong. It wasn’t just that she had never received a message like this before.

 

Brain #20413 was perfectly viable and had been speaking to her quite lucidly just a moment ago. If she followed the instructions from Command, she’d be a murderer. And if she _didn’t_ , she’d be in deep trouble, under the weird company law that TeraTech got away with on its space stations- which could be anything from a demotion to imprisonment. Her mind raced as she kept buying time by scrolling through her unread mail, acutely aware of her most pressing problem: the gently blinking eye of the security camera behind her back.

 

A situation like this had felt like an inevitability when she signed on with TeraTech, which was why she’d discreetly rigged a way to trigger an apparent malfunction in the Robotics security cameras early into her contract. The problem was that a gap in the footage would be terribly obvious if things went wrong and her situation came under real scrutiny. It would be better if she could pull this off without resorting to that.

 

And now that she thought of it, maybe she wouldn’t have to. She thought about the security camera’s placement. The brain fridge (which wasn’t its _technical_ name, but right now she didn't care) was visible, but only side-on. Anyone reviewing the footage from today would only see her put in the day’s shipment of brains, and later remove one in its inner packaging. She was in the habit of keeping the outer packaging, with the serial number and health summary, until after she’d properly tested the corresponding brain.

 

In other words, if she could find a nonviable brain in the fridge, she could swap the outer packaging and register her mystery patient with someone else’s serial. She didn’t like the idea of incinerating an untested brain, but it was still better than murdering someone she’d just brought back to life.

 

 _Stop rationalizing and just get it done,_ she chided herself. She could feel her palms sweating under her clean gloves as she opened the fridge and quickly scanned the shelves. Jade worked quickly enough that there was never much of a backlog in her lab, but there were still a couple of yesterday’s leftovers in here, and a few from today’s arrivals. Most of them at least _looked_ healthy, but one of the new ones felt off when she hefted it and turned it around. Closer inspection revealed light damage, the sort that was easy for a field medic to miss but which almost always rendered the brain a useless chunk of gristle. And it _was_ marked as an emergency collection, not an ordinary donor brain.

 

Jade made the switch quickly and deposited what she couldn’t help but think of as the sacrifice brain in the lab’s small waste incinerator, along with all the packaging for #20413. As far as the station’s command staff should know, she’d obeyed her orders exactly and promptly. She grabbed the sacrificed brain’s info on her way back into the surgery, feeling very conscious of her every move. It was important to act normal, to avoid giving the security staff any reason to suspect.

 

“Hi,” she said brightly, keeping a grip on her nerves. Her mystery patient was right where she’d left them on the operating table- no surprise there, since she hadn’t activated most of their limbs yet.

 

“Hello, doctor. You claimed that you would only be gone a second, but by the calculations of my perfect computer brain you have been gone for several minutes.” Their voice was completely deadpan and their face, built to be so expressive, was neutrally blank.

 

Jade stared at the cyborg for a minute, wondering if she’d built the chassis wrong, before she relaxed and laughed. “You don’t have a perfect computer brain. That’s kind of the only original hardware you’ve got left.”

 

“I realize this, but I am making an effort to adapt to being a robot.”

 

“Not gonna lie here, I kind of think most of the staff would fall for it. Would you like to pick a name now, or have you remembered yours, or…” She trailed off. “No rush, but it’d be kind of awkward to call you by your serial number.”

 

“I am confident that it was not my own name, but… I believe Maria would be a suitable substitute for the time being. You may refer to me as a woman,” she added hesitantly. “If that’s still applicable in my current state.”

 

“Maria it is, then! And I think it is, at least. Let’s get you registered and ease you into some more motor functions. You should hang around the lab for a day or two anyway, so we can make sure you’re not having any problems.”

 

Jade slipped back into her ordinary routine. Maria was an easy patient to work with: as she lead her through a series of exercises to test her motor function she was calm and well-spoken, with brief hints of dry humor. It was too early to mark it down officially, but Jade already knew the newly-minted cyborg wouldn’t have any trouble with her new body. Some people took more time to adjust, but others were just naturals.

 

It was either a blessing or a curse that everything was going so smoothly, because it left her mind free to race over their situation. Not only was Maria clearly functional, she was outright pleasant to deal with. Why had someone- someone at the _command_ level, even- wanted her dead for good? Had there been foul play involved in her death?

 

So far, Jade had steered clear of company intrigue by sticking to her quiet department and working alone. But even she had heard hushed rumors of saboteurs and spies, and the station staff were all acutely aware that other TeraTech research stations had been outright attacked by rival companies in the past. Sure, #31 was one of the safer stations, which was part of why she’d signed on here, but that could always change. And its remote location meant that if things went really wrong, she was pretty much screwed.

 

She felt like she needed to get to the bottom of whatever unfortunate intrigue she’d put her foot in- for her own safety, if nothing else. But she’d have to be careful about it. A misstep could put Maria in danger- or, just as bad, it could expose her own… political affiliations. Jade wasn’t half done with the personal project that had drawn her to this place.

 

_Though if it works like I think it should, Maria’s chassis will be good progress there…_

 

If she had been working anywhere else, Jade might have dismissed all her concerns as paranoia. But with TeraTech, there was no such thing as too paranoid.

 

At least Maria seemed to be a model patient.

 

—————————

 

Kanaya Maryam flexed her new metal fingers, one at a time, and wondered how she was going to get out of this mess.

**Author's Note:**

> I’d like to apologize in advance if the update schedule for this ends up being erratic. Most of my writing time is taken up by the things I can make money off of, not weird-ass AU fanfic. I mean, I love it, but it’s gotta take the back burner.


End file.
